Biocon's Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw says the best way to counter transnational seed company Monsanto's "monopoly" in India's cotton seed sector is to allow competition to develop similar technologies, maintaining that activism against genetically modified (GM) crops is stifling the efforts of Indian firms.

Though a substantial level of the country's cotton contains Monsanto's technology, which is licensed to over 25 Indian seed companies, the Chairperson and Managing Director of biotech firm Biocon said the criticism that this will put India's seed sovereignty in jeopardy is too far-fetched.

"The best way to counter such a monopoly is to allow competition to develop similar technologies," she said here. "All this activism against GM crops is stifling the efforts of the Indian companies as well the public sector institutions to come up with competing technologies. The anti-GM activists may thus be helping the multinationals to hold on to their monopoly."

On the Supreme Court-appointed technical experts committee (TEC) on GMOs (genetically modified organisms) recently recommending that there should not be any field trials of GM crops until gaps in the regulatory systems are addressed, Mazumdar-Shaw said the report has disregarded the enormous body of evidence attesting to the safety and benefits of GM crops.

According to her, one of the members (Dr. R S Paroda, former Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research), who was added to the committee in order to bring in someone with real expertise in agriculture, has not signed the report, and he has presented a separate report which in all likelihood is at significant variance with the former.

"It may also be noted that the members of the TEC who have signed the report have for a long time opposed the introduction of GM crops and therefore it is not at all surprising that they recommended the ban. If you have been following the story, this report has been roundly condemned, not just by scientists, but by several other stakeholders, including farmers," Mazumdar-Shaw said.

She said "India's regulatory system is well designed – the proof is that after over a decade of commercialisation of Bt cotton, there is not a single credible report of any harm to humans, animals or the environment.

"On the other hand, the benefits have been many; the production, productivity and farmer incomes have all gone up! The functioning of our regulatory system is being stifled by strident activism and misleading campaigns. Even our legal structures